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Samsung's Youm flexible-display tech at CES 2013

The screens, which were shown off here as just a concept, promise to
change what kind of form factors are possible for companies that make
smartphones and
tablets.
Samsung brought out a handful of demo units around 5-inches in size
to show press, including a phonelike device with a screen that wraps
around the side edges and could therefore display information like text
messages and other alerts without a user needing to view the entire
screen. A similar design puts the wraparounds on the bottom, while
another concept (shown off in a video) rolled out like a scroll.

Behind the scenes, Samsung is making use of OLED to give the screens
what it says are deeper blacks and a higher overall contrast ratio with
better power efficiency than traditional LCD displays.
During a brief viewing of the technology following the presentation,
Samsung showed a small group of reporters a close-up of the screens,
which were displaying still images and videos. Touch interactions with
the tech were not shown off (since the displays were not hooked up to
CPUs), but Samsung was keen to demo the possible form factors, from a
screen bent like a question mark to more simple designs that form a
small curl on the edges.
Samsung did not provide a price or release date for Youm.
Samsung's approach (which the company teased last month) differs from competitor Nokia, which made waves in October 2011 with its "kinetic interface" technology.
Nokia showed off a flexible screen that controlled aspects of the phone
hardware depending on how users twisted the screen. So far, Samsung
appears to be more interested in using its own technology to turn parts
of the phone that would otherwise go unused to additional areas to
display information and add interactivity.
This is not the first time Samsung has unveiled flexible-display
technology at CES. The company demoed flexible, transparent displays at the same show in 2011,
also with the intent to bring them to future devices. The newer models
come in larger form factors and with higher pixel displays.